I remember when he and I first met in the hallway of a hotel. We soon realized we were on our way to the same meeting, so we broke the ice and struck up a conversation. After the meeting, our chat continued and I was struck by the thought, “I need to hear more of this guy’s story.”

You may or may not know that Shawn wrote a book that is redefining the sexuality conversations we have with teenagers. He’s giving away a free copy of his book this week. As he explains it:

The message of God’s redemptive love for those with same-sex attractions is spreading. Stories of churches changing their mindsets and ministry approaches to the gay community are being shared. Parents are learning how to deeply love their gay children without fear. It’s amazing what God is doing! And not just through our ministry, but through numerous ministries who share our passion and mission.

Still, there are churches and families who have not heard about Six:11 Ministries, or our book, Ministering to Gay Teenagers. There are many churches who are struggling to find their footing in ministry to the gay community, and those with same-sex attractions within their congregations. There are many families struggling to understand why their child is gay, and how to love them without compromising their faith. Without sounding egotistical, this is why we need to get our ministry and resources out there. And this is where we need YOUR help!

So get over to Shawn’s blog and learn more about how your next tweet or post can spread the word and potentially get you some free stuff along the way!

The makers of the backyard game of Spikeball are giving away a combo pack of the incredibly epic game to one lucky MTDB reader! It is honestly one of our favorite summertime games in our high school ministry! To get in on the action, leave a comment on this blog post and you’re in the running to get a full set. Never heard of the game? Check out their website to check out how it works and use promo code DIVE35 to get 10% off if you want to get one of your own, too!

There a few words I enjoy more than “Free Stuff” and here it is. Perhaps your youth group has great prizes or perhaps not, what better way to give them out than with the prize wheel and lets face it, sometimes the worse the prize the more students love it. The iPrize Wheel App isÂ completelyÂ customizable and can be populated with whatever information you want easily and quickly. Save the hours of building and then storing the real thing with a simple App, its tons of fun, runs on your iPad and costs $5 ($10 for an even more epic version). There is more information on their websiteÂ or just go straight to the App Store.

We are giving away 4 iTunes download codes away to the top responses to this question:

Question:Â What is the strangest / worst object that is currently in your office that you would give away with the iPrize Wheel?

Want to win a free registration to the SYMC Conference in a couple weeks? I’m giving away 1 TODAY! Here’s how the giveaway started:

I am a youth worker in Minneapolis and I’ve been honored to be one of your “guest posts” on your blog a couple of times – anyway, I am paid in full for the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Louisville, but I am now unable to go. I talked to my team and the other youth guys in the area but they’re either already going or unable to attend – so I’m wondering if you might be able to give it away for me?

So I was thinking if you had some sort of a contest – like have them post their best one-off idea for a youth event/program and the best/most hilarious wins my registration? Something like that? That way I get ideas (nice!) and they get to go to the conference!

So there you have it – post a comment with something of value for the community, and Kory [the youth worker who donated it] will pick the winner Thursday morning!

Celebrating 15,000 comments so far here on MTDB – so I’m giving away a youth ministry resource every day this week. Today’s giveaway is the Labels series we did a while back in HSM put out by Simply Youth Ministry. Good stuff on identity, dealing with labels, and our value in Christ. All you have to do to get in on the giveaway is leave a comment on this post. Winner announced tomorrow when we put up another giveaway!

And if you want in on some other great youth ministry resources at 15% off, use the promo code THEBIG15 in the shopping cart of Simply Youth Ministry. Now … leave a comment!

I posted last week about the new LIVE curriculum add-ons and the gang over at Simply Youth Ministry gave me a copy of each to giveaway. Here’s the sweet part, if you have the original LIVE curriculum already, you get the add ons for free if you win. If you don’t yet have LIVE and you win, you get both the LIVE Curriculum ($499) and the add-ons as well ($249 each). Up for it? All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and you could win! Do it!

A couple weeks ago we noticed we were closing in on a significant milestone of friends on our student ministry’s Facebook page. We decided to give social media a little intentional push during announcements and also to hold a giveaway to one of the new friends as we went over the goal. Don’t be distracted by the number of friends – what’s the point here?

Set a goal - 3 months ago we had 1/3rd this number of friends. The goal made a huge difference.

Make your Facebook page worth visiting – mobile uploads are your friend. Score a volunteer to oversee updating of pictures and statuses. I would guess most people will visit your Facebook page before visiting in person.

Pictures speak volumes - a picture is worth a thousand words. Get some pictures of students having a great time at youth group online.

Give to get – yes, the iPod giveaway idea cost us, but gave us an open door of communication with a much larger group of students than we had last week.